


Arrangements

by Xyriath



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Automail, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 13:40:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6706570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xyriath/pseuds/Xyriath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Though the arrangement between Roy and Ed isn't typical, it has its uses.  Two adults getting together and fucking out some stress?  Totally understandable.  And, Ed's learned, it can be plenty enjoyable.</p><p>But arrangements like these have rules, and they have expectations.  And the thought of losing it because he can't keep to them?  Ed's not sure he could deal with that, not anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arrangements

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jujubee2522](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubee2522/gifts).



> Commission for Jujubee2522. Fic inspired by The Cab's [Animal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBHk7bsz7pM)!

The crack of the folder slapping down on to Roy’s desk rang out through the office, startling Roy into jumping in his chair.  It was a satisfying sound, one that Ed had perfected to celebrate the completion of a particularly difficult project—and punish Roy, just a little bit, for assigning it to him.

“Here.  I fuckin’ finished these goddamn regulations.  Fucking _finally._ ”

“Thank you, Fullmetal.”  Despite the jump earlier, the bastard’s voice _oozed_ smugness.  “I knew you were the right man for the job.”

Ed let out a noise of blatant displeasure.  That damn name.  He’d never escape it.

“Something wrong?”

Ed eyed Roy, trying to figure out if he was being coy or just oblivious.  But it _was_ Roy.  So probably fucking coy.

“Do you know how _much_ of a pain in the ass it is to work with lawmakers?  Especially those old fogeys—they think I’m still a kid, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.  They fought me at every fucking step—like State Alchemists don’t need strict regulations!  How have they not learned better by now, after everything that happened!”

“I had the utmost faith in you.”

Ed’s look turned completely black.  “So you _did_ know.”

“Why do you think I assigned the task to you?” Roy asked, returning to his paperwork, utterly unconcerned.  Ed gritted his teeth.

“So you just didn’t wanna deal with it yourself, huh?”  The rest of the team barely glanced over at the disrespect, simply ignoring the spat.

Roy let out a longsuffering sigh.  “You knew that reforming the State Alchemist program wouldn’t be easy, but you took me up on my offer when you requested to be removed from field work.”  Roy’s eyes met Ed’s.  “Are you telling me that you’re reconsidering your ability, Lieutenant Colonel Elric?”  The formality snapped the atmosphere between them like a banner in the wind.

Fucker.  Fucker, fucker, fucker.

“Like fuck.”  Ed straightened his shoulders.  “Doesn’t make them any less infuriating, though.”

Roy’s only response was to glance up and smirk.  Ed narrowed his eyes and glared, but Roy had angled his head just so, and they slid up the skin there, lingering on the muscle lines as Ed tried not to flick his tongue out and wet his lips.

Bastard.

—

“So I imagine that today _wasn’t_ fun.”

“Mmmm?”

“The assignment I gave you.  It sounds like it was difficult.”

“Mmmm.”

“Edward, are you even paying attention to me?”

“Mm-mmm.”

In fact, Ed was now thoroughly engrossed in mouthing up the expanse of neck that had so caught his attention earlier.  He had yet to taste anything else as exquisite as Roy Mustang.

“I’m trying to hold a conversation here.”

Of course, the amused voice—his voice at all, really—could sour the whole effect.

“Is that _really_ why you invited me over?” Ed shot back, finally pulling back from Roy’s neck, gleaming slightly where his mouth had just been.  At the raised eyebrow, Roy reached out to slide a hand around Ed’s waist, and Ed stepped closer, watching the way Roy’s eyes widened slightly as they pressed gently against each other.  “To _converse?_ ”

“No,” Roy murmured reluctantly, and Ed lifted his own hand to plant it in the center of Roy’s chest and shove him backwards, onto the bed.  He allowed himself a moment of bitter satisfaction: no, of course Roy didn’t want to talk.  He wanted to fuck, wanted to forget his shitty day with a few orgasms, the same way that Ed did, and Ed just happened to be the most readily available option.

“Thought so,” Ed gasped, and he told himself that the harshness in his tone was eagerness, urgency, as he climbed on top of the bed after Roy, climbed on _top_ of Roy, straddling him and running his hands down Roy’s chest.

The kiss as they came together jolted through Ed’s stomach with its fierceness, and for a moment, it burned away any lingering—it definitely wasn’t resentment, he told himself, or disappointment.  They were two fucking grown men, no strings attached, no complications.  Just the way Ed liked it.

Roy gasped when Ed went to work on his neck again, this time with teeth as well.  Ed moaned softly against the skin, savoring the taste as he licked up slowly, then nipped again, knowing full well that Roy was going to have to wear a fucking _high_ collar tomorrow to hide Ed’s handiwork.    He felt Roy’s hands move around to grab his ass, squeezing deliberately, and pressed back into the touch, demanding.  The hands moved up to slide under his shirt, pressing up over his ribs before yanking Ed’s military jacket off, then pushing the two of them up so Ed was sitting in his lap and Roy could shrug off his own jacket, assisted by Ed’s insistent fingers.

The shirts proved trickier, because the two of them had to _stop_ kissing in order to remove them, and neither seemed to be able: one would pull back, and the other would follow, diving almost desperately towards his mouth, and neither of them had the willpower to refuse.

Ed _finally_ managed to strip the offending pieces of clothing by forcing the cloth past their mouths right as he pulled away, dragging Roy’s off without a care to the nails on his left hand, drawing a groan from Roy as they dug into his back.

Ed ran his hands down Roy’s chest once it was exposed, exhaling shakily, tracing his fingers over the scar, a mark of—of so many things that had happened, of what he had been through, and survived.  Ed—Ed hated where his mind took him, in moments like this, to a place of what wasn’t quite nostalgia, but carried the same ache, the same wistfulness as he thought about everything that Roy had survived—

Roy’s fingers, tracing over Ed’s matching stomach scar, immediately yanked him back to the physical.  Though the motion of Roy’s hand was similar, the looks of the two healed wounds was anything but: Ed’s was ugly and puckered, more a badge of shame than bravery, and he shoved Roy’s hand away.

“No,” he murmured.  They had talked about this, and the jagged scars on his thigh and shoulder, and even the one over his right eyebrow.  Roy withdrew his hand, lifting it instead to cup Ed’s cheek, a muted expression of concern peeking through that left Ed gritting his teeth nearly as much.

Ed kissed him roughly, to stop him, to stop himself, to get them back on fucking track.  He stripped the rest of their clothes methodically, in record time, throwing them carelessly to the side, and he grinned fiercely at Roy’s expression, hungry and dangerous, as he fingered himself open.  Don’t give Roy time to commit one of their taboos again, or possibly commit a worse one—Ed didn’t need the reminder, especially not of the automail, not of how visible it was, not of what Roy must think of it to be distracted by it, even during sex.  He wanted to forget, just for a little bit, why this had never gone beyond anything but stress relief, and never would, not with the undercurrent of disgust that ran through him every time he saw his own scars, his automail, and how much worse it had to be for anyone who had to look at it all the time.

Not that it fucking mattered, anyway.  He bared his teeth in a hiss as he sank down onto Roy’s cock, and at the way Roy tilted his head back, groaning, he knew that fucking amazing sex didn’t need anything else besides what they had now.

Roy groaned as Ed rocked forward, hands settling on Ed’s waist and gripping tightly as he set a rough, almost punishing pace.  The stretch and slide as Roy’s cock sank into him; the muscles stiffening between his thighs; the slow, building pleasure as Ed adjusted the angle of his rocking; it had turned into an addiction, leaving him craving more even as he took all he could.

The ragged gasps below him dissonated with his own, the pressure of the thrill and satisfaction building in every cell of his body, and he ran his fingers up Roy’s chest, glancing down at him.  _Fuck_ , the look in Roy’s eyes as they fixed on Ed, hungry and longing and desperate—

It left Ed shaking, mouth open, chest heaving, as he continued to thrust his hips downwards onto Roy’s cock.

Roy’s fingers dug into Ed’s ass nearly to the point of pain, gripping him, adding force to Ed’s movement as he jerked downwards.  Ed let out a soft moan of encouragement, speeding up, and shivered, closing his eyes.  There was something about Roy’s expression: it was either that, or look away.

The pleasure had built to nearly uncontainable levels now, thrumming through him, promising that if he just kept going, kept using Roy the same way Roy used him—

He shuddered, groaning, as the orgasm rushed through him, rocking his hips still as he rode Roy through it.  Roy was close behind: he gripped Ed’s thighs with a growl, Ed’s aftershocks still shaking through him as Roy arched.

The two of them collapsed into a panting mess afterwards, limbs thrown haphazardly—close, touching, but neither reaching out to hold the other.

They would lie there for a while, just like they always did, then go again, and again.  And once they were both sated, destressed, and Roy was on the verge of falling asleep, Ed would slip out from under the sheets, collect his clothes, and go.

Just like always.

—

Roy paid for Ed’s dinners some evenings; Ed saw it as a “thank you” for not running screaming when this arrangement had first been proposed, after their first hasty fuck in Roy’s office which had followed a particularly infuriating day of meetings with the remaining top brass.  Ed, of course, was never one to turn down free food.  It was a common enough practice, and two nights later, Roy proposed it again.

So what was this anxiousness, then, when he caught sight of Roy sitting across from an empty seat at a table in one of Central’s nicer restaurants?

It might have been the clothes, Ed decided over a few entrées, working his way through some ravioli; goddamn that man looked good in a suit.  _Goddamn._   The things he was going to do to Roy tonight—

“I wanted to talk to you about the state of our relationship.”

Oh.  Fuck.

“My concern,” Roy began, near the end of dinner, glancing down at his wine glass with mild interest, “is that both of us might not be happy with where it is, currently.”  He glanced up at Ed.  “The sneaking around, the near-misses… there’s a danger, in a concealed relationship between a military officer and his subordinate.”

 _Fuck._   Ed should have seen this coming.  He should have known that Roy’s ambitions wouldn’t permit them to keep fucking around without a care in the world, taking risks without a thought for the consequences.  He didn’t blame Roy, of course; they were Roy’s _life_ , and the lives of millions of others, and the well-being of an entire country depended on them.

“I get it,” Ed said quickly.  “Don’t worry.”

Roy’s eyebrows raised.  “You do?”

“Yeah.”  He nodded decisively, knowing in this instant that he couldn’t, _couldn’t_ let Roy end this.  It was… something he had grown to rely on.  Good sex could do wonders for stress, and even Al had noticed.  Roy was clearly trying to spare Ed’s pride and allow him to either end it with dignity, on his own terms, or ensure that things wouldn’t become a problem again.

“I don’t have a problem with where it is now.  I agree that we’ve gotten sloppy, though, and some of that’s my fault.”  He met Roy’s eyes, lifting his chin.  Some part of him—a very large part of him, really—felt like a completely desperate idiot, trying so hard to hang onto something when Roy was clearly not too fussed over the thought of losing it.  “I’ll be more careful.  But I won’t let it turn into trouble.  Swear it.”

He could see a flash of mild surprise across Roy’s face, maybe even disappointment—had he wanted Ed to end it so badly?—but it quickly settled into that obnoxious, cocky, smirk.

“Absolutely, Edward.  I understand.  It’s not a problem.”

Ed let out a soft, slow breath as the tension in the atmosphere receded.

“Also, I did want to let you know that I won’t be available tonight.  I have some work I need to finish up.”

Ed didn’t flinch, not externally, but a voice inside him whispered that this was some sort of punishment for not bowing his head and exiting gracefully.  Well, Edward Elric didn’t fucking quit.  Roy should know that by now.

“Yeah, that’s fine.”  He shrugged.  “Do you wanna tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow sounds excellent.”

“Good.  See you then.”  The sooner things returned to normal, the better.

Still, later that night, as Roy walked away, something settled in Ed’s chest.  Something wistful, something almost sad.

He couldn’t identify it, but as Roy’s form receded into the darkness, Ed wondered if it was the reason that he couldn’t seem to look away.


End file.
